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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938372">There Are No Words in the English Language (I Can Scream to Drown You Out)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas'>fiveyaaas</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>because you’ll listen [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(mentioned very briefly), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Past Abuse, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Number Five | The Boy, Touch-Starved Vanya Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves Gets a Hug, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 03:41:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938372</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five glanced up at Vanya, a worried line forming between his brows. She probably shouldn’t have gone to his room unannounced and asked something like that; she knew there were boundaries that were probably very much needed between them. Even though he’d landed in an adult body when he took them back, he was mentally a senior, and she had made a very awful mistake in her love life, which he <i>(rightfully)</i> assumed that she needed to avoid jumping into anything with anyone. </p>
<p>But Five wasn’t anyone to her. </p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>because you’ll listen [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2122461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There Are No Words in the English Language (I Can Scream to Drown You Out)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, this series is where I will put all prompt requests I get on tumblr. If you ever have prompts you’d like to read from me, please send them in <a href="https://fiveyaaas.tumblr.com/ask"> here. </a> As I allow anons, I’m <i> pretty </i> sure you don’t have to have a tumblr to send them in. </p>
<p>Here was the original prompt-<br/><i> “Hi! I am on a #VanyaWhump mood. So I was wondering if you would (maybe? If you want) write a fic about Touch Starved Vanya? We all know how touch starved Five is, but how abt one where he finds Vanya being in several abusive/toxic relations just because she needed to be touched somehow, anyhow... Please and Thank you. Have a lovely day! PS: I LOVE YOUR FICS SO SO MUCH!!!!! &lt;3” </i> </p>
<p>I haven’t included much of the exploration of her feelings with Leonard in this, more just the touch-starved Vanya aspect, but this is a canon-divergent fic, where when Five takes them back in time after Icarus, they land on the day of the funeral again, except Five lands in a 30 year old body.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Could you play with my hair?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five glanced up at Vanya, a worried line forming between his brows. She probably shouldn’t have gone to his room unannounced and asked something like that; she knew there were boundaries that were probably very much needed between them. Even though he’d landed in an adult body when he took them back, he was mentally a senior, and she had made a very awful mistake in her love life, which he </span>
  <em>
    <span>(rightfully)</span>
  </em>
  <span> assumed that she needed to avoid jumping into anything with anyone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Five wasn’t anyone to her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to,” she hastened to add. “I just…” She just needed somebody to touch her. It wasn’t a sexual thing, really. Five certainly looked </span>
  <em>
    <span>attractive</span>
  </em>
  <span> in this body, but she needed the comfort of somebody’s touch. Needed the feeling of somebody that would touch her and never hurt her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He flashed over to her, holding her hands, probably feeling her speeding pulse in his grasp. Five towered above her now, and it didn’t scare her, the way Luther’s height and strength sometimes did, neck pricking with invisible hands when she ate breakfast with all of them. Her best friend's eyes were infinitely gentle as he whispered, clearly realizing how significant her request was, “I can do that, Sev.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five’s grip was strong as he led her to his bed, letting her climb in while he blinked to his door and locked it. Apparently, he could tell that she didn’t want to interact with other people, or for other people to walk in and see her pathetically asking him to touch her. When he landed beside her, he set his hand against her cheek, his thumb gently brushing against the tear-stained skin for a few moments. “Why were you crying?” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. “Is something wrong?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’d never hurt me, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Never,” he promised, and, then, like they were children, he held out his pinky to her. With a small smile tugging at her lips, she looped their pinkies. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>have to worry about that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You weren’t busy, were you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh no, I was just working through... homework.” He pulled her down. “It’s such an odd thing to say that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you not like college?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not hard or anything,” he said, like she would possibly think it would be hard for him. “I just am not used to something so… ordinary.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He said the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>ordinary </span>
  </em>
  <span>like it was the most lovely thing he could imagine. For him, the word had always meant something different she imagined. Five had called her ordinary that first night he’d come home, and she realized that in no context to him was it an insult. How odd that was to her. Now that she knew she wasn’t ordinary, though, she could ironically see the appeal. Especially for someone like Five, who had probably spent years in that wasteland wanting a quiet life, a normal life, an </span>
  <em>
    <span>ordinary </span>
  </em>
  <span>life. She couldn’t see him not spending it with somebody else, and she sometimes wondered if he would find somebody and leave them all behind. As much as he would protest this, she knew that, at heart, he was somebody that needed someone else around. It had never surprised her that he’d found companionship in Dolores, for that reason. The others might have joked about it, but she knew he’d ache without somebody else around, the way she ached to be touched now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you happy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five blinked, apparently not used to be asked that question. Though, then again, why would he be? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right now?” His hands finally sank into her hair, scratching her scalp lightly in the process. “Entirely.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even though she blushed at his words, she didn’t want to presume that he was referring to touching her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, that concern left her completely when he whispered, reverently, “I think I forgot what human contact felt like.” Guilt pierced through her, but he let out a happy sigh when she hugged his torso, setting her cheek against his chest and listening to his pulse. “You know how much I missed you, right?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t try to argue with him. His voice sounded </span>
  <em>
    <span>raw </span>
  </em>
  <span>as he said it, and she knew there was no way he could possibly fake that. Besides, Vanya had spent years seeking out the feeling of him, in various partners that she’d leave after a few weeks and in various daydreams that she’d spend a week or more only focusing on. It made sense that he’d miss her, just a little bit, as her best friend. “I missed you too,” Vanya said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why’d you ask me to touch you?” Five asked, even though he hadn’t stopped touching her at all, probably just clarifying what she wanted here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just needed to know that somebody could touch me and not hurt me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Five kissed her temple, and she didn’t try to interpret the meaning of it, knowing that trying to figure out what it meant would do nothing for her and that she just wanted the feeling of his touch and that he was offering it. “You can always come to me for that,” he assured. “It helps me too, you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because you were alone for years?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shrugged, making her body move a little with the movement. “I mean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>that, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but… Touching you without the purpose of hurting you is </span>
  <em>
    <span>nice. </span>
  </em>
  <span>When I was in the Commission, there were times that I would sleep around just because I needed to touch somebody without snapping their neck or hurting them in any way. Even then, anybody that I was with, even if they were like you in personality and looks, they </span>
  <em>
    <span>weren’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> you. And sometimes it would just leave me with even more frustration than comfort.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Though Vanya knew he was offering up something huge by saying he slept with people like her, she didn’t try to interpret that, either. They had plenty of time after this. For now, she would just take the comfort of his touch and hope that he got comfort too. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading!!! </p>
<p>
  <a href="https://fiveyaaas.tumblr.com/ask"> Send in a prompt here. </a>
</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://fiveyaaas.tumblr.com/post/641122478033338368/youd-never-hurt-me-right"> See the moodboard for this fic here. </a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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